"What am I to do with it?" asked Sam, who had some idea of what had been passing in the mind of Ash.
"When you see her whirling about, just stick the board on the bottom, or against the bank, and push her round," added Tom.
Sam obeyed the order when the bow came near enough to the bank for him to touch it. But when he attempted to reach the bottom of the creek, the water was too deep for the length of his stick. The boat whirled again, and Tom reproved the hand forward for not preventing it.
"I can't touch bottom with this oar," replied Sam. "I can only use it when she runs into the bank."
The Thunderer was approaching the stone-quarries, and the creek was wider and deeper than where they had embarked. Tom could give no further orders to remedy the difficulty, and the craft continued to waltz on her course. When they had gone a short distance farther, a slight breeze from behind Beech Hill filled the sail. In that turn of the stream it happened to be fair, and the boat began to move more rapidly through the water.
There was no more trouble about the steering at that moment; for, as soon as she had steerage-way, there was something for the rudder to act against.
"That's the talk!" exclaimed Tom, when he saw the Thunderer behaving like a proper and obedient Thunderer. "She has got over that bad trick, and she steers like a lady now."
The craft reached the hill, and again she was left in a calm. Not a particle of breeze came to fill the sail, and she began to gyrate as she had done before. Tom was vexed; and he tried in vain to solve the mystery, while Ash chuckled at the ignorance and stupidity of the captain of the Thunderer.
Passing the Bristol cottage, which seemed to be closed up, they came into Beechwater. There was a little breeze on the lake, and the sail filled again. But the wind did not come from the same direction as before; and after the sheet—not the main sheet, but the bed-sheet doing duty as a mainsail—had filled once, it refused to fill again. It had been trimmed at random, and was not in position to profit by the light air that came to it.
Ash Burton laughed in his sleeve, and winked at Sam Spottwood. As the Thunderer had passed out of the current, or where the force of it was diffused through the whole breadth of the lake, she ceased to move at all, so far as her gallant skipper could discern.